Shiller and Beihan had only just left the consulting room when Beihan felt a chilling breeze blow in from the far end of the corridor, rustling the loose hair on his forehead.
Beihan blinked hard, rubbed his eyes, and took half a step forward, bending his upper body to look at the end of the corridor.
Had he just seen things? Why, after the wind had passed, did he see long, dark hair flying in the wind at the end of the corridor? Was there a woman standing there?
Just as Beihan was about to go out and look closer, he was pulled back by someone. He looked back and saw it was Shiller.
Beihan looked down at the hand that Shiller was using to grab him. His expression clearly asked why Shiller was holding him back. Shiller just shook his head gently and spoke.
"I'll emphasize it again, there might be supernatural things going on in this hospital. Prepare yourself…"
"I don't buy that," Beihan retorted, pulling his arm back. "Even if there were ghosts in this world, I wouldn't be scared. Science can explain it all."
Speaking, he walked into the middle of the corridor, confronting the window where he'd seen a phantom. As expected, there was a woman there, her black hair blowing in the wind.
Beihan observed a spectral woman in a red dress with a pale face and red eyes. He snorted lightly, and with firm steps, walked towards the female ghost.
"Let's see what happens…" Beihan said.
The next second, Beihan froze.
Becuase he saw another familiar figure behind the woman.
"Ah!"
"Bang!"
The door of the consulting room was slammed shut. Beihan leaned against it with his hands on his back, staring at Shiller with haunted eyes.
He glanced at Shiller, then at the consulting room's observation window, and then back at Shiller again.
Beihan rubbed his eyes hard.
"I told you about the supernatural events," Shiller said as he looked at Beihan.
"But you didn't tell me that the ghost was you!" Beihan almost roared. "What's going on? Why are there two of you?!"
"There have been some accidents," Shiller said nonchalantly, tilting his head, "You should understand how I felt when I first found out you weren't sick."
These words gave Beihan a puzzled look, he squinted one eye and asked, "Are the Batmen you know all sick?"
"That depends on whether your definition of Batman being sick is pathological or psychological. If it's the latter, stop looking at me as if we've seen a ghost. We need to find a solution."
"But…" Beihan hesitated before he finally began pointing one after another towards Shiller, the window outside, and back at Shiller, and lastly, at himself with his fingers fused together. He then spread them out.
This series of actions already expressed his attitude ── the monster and player were both Shiller right now, what could he do?
"What was I wearing just now when you saw me?" Shiller asked.
This question from Shiller surprised Beihan even more. Before he could ask what this has to do with anything, Shiller's serious expression made him realize that this seemingly bizarre event was not a joke.
"Wait, let me guess," Beihan raised a hand to stop Shiller from speaking and said, "Some demon inside you slipped out, and you can't control it."
Shiller nodded but also shook his head.
Beihan gave a puzzled look, and Shiller said, "The term 'certain' is not accurate."
Beihan's eyes widened.
"The term 'demon' is amusing but also not accurate," Shiller said, shaking his head slightly. He looked through the observing window and added, "You've probably figured it out by now. We're currently in a special dream."
"The problem is, patients with dissociative identity disorder have independent identities in dreams, and some of my personalities have seized the opportunity to escape."
"But I'm not the host of this dream. It's likely the Killer Devil from this level, causing disturbed personalities to appear in a peculiar state. They don't seem to be physically real, nor ghosts, but a kind of spirit that can only be reflected in reflective objects."
Shiller glanced through the observation window again and added, "Unfortunately, this is not good news. It seems that these disturbed personalities, as spirit entities, can simultaneously affect the physical beings and ghosts in this dream, achieving a full swoop."
"Wait," Beihan interrupted Shiller, his brow furrowed as he placed his ear against the door and asked, "Do you hear something?"
Shiller remained silent and didn't answer. Beihan listened attentively to a low humming sound that seemed to come from the corridor.
Beihan opened the door, and a cold wind rushed in, but when he looked at the window where the phantom had disappeared, he found the window was closed.
Beihan's eyebrows tightened as if he thought of something. "If this is a dream, then our bodies should still be in the car. Does it mean that everything we see and hear in the dream only exists in the dream?"
Suddenly, a cold light flashed before Beihan's eyes. He felt a hand grab his arm and jerked him back. With a "bang," the door was shut, and Beihan fell to the ground.
The one who dragged him back was Shiller, and the chill that had just flown across his eyes was now slanting into the wall on the other side of the room. Standing up through the observation window, Beihan could see that it was a sharp piece of glass.
"What color clothes was I wearing?! " Shiller asked this question again, and the urgency in his tone was palpable.
"It's black, pitch black."
"Damn it."
Upon saying this, Shiller briskly walked towards the window in the consultation room. He tried to unlock the window, but inevitably it didn't budge. Peering out, the usual landscape was veiled in a layer of nebulous mist, distorting into ripples and vortices if you looked closely.
The fact that this was a dream didn't need affirmation from the scene outside the window. But now, the way out of the hospital building was obstructed. To leave the room, their only option was to backtrack through the hallway.
"I don't understand," Beihan said, spreading his hands. "Aren't you just one person? You..."
"Smack!"
Pieces of the door's observation window's glass flew past Beihan's face, radiating a resplendent array of colors. The glossy surface reflected a man dressed in black attire.
It looked like Shiller, but it wasn't him. He was not wearing his glasses, and his exposed grey eyes only held a hunter's thirst for blood and savagery.
"That's the Hunter," Shiller said as he briskly walked towards the door. "We need to leave this place quickly, get somewhere safe, then I can explain to you."
Upon finishing, he pushed Beihan away from the door, reached out to twist the knob, but after the soft click of the lock opening, he didn't immediately open the door.
At the next moment, with a "boom", the suspended ceiling in front of the door crashed down. Unphased, Shiller pushed the door open just enough to kick away the plaster fragments obstructing the entrance, and stepped outside.
Beihan followed behind him, persistently feeling the cold wind brushing up from behind, an increasingly thoughtful look crossing his face.
Just as another gust of cold wind brushed past him, Beihan shuddered and came to a sudden realization.
He quickened his steps, nearly shouldering Shiller as he said: "We indeed should find somewhere safe. I have a few conjectures to discuss with you."
"We cannot stay on this floor; we need to head upstairs," Shiller said, looking up at the ceiling. "If I'm not mistaken, it should be a lot safer up there."
"You mean to say there are no manifestations of your personality traits there?"
"Rather, the safer personality traits."
The two of them quickly entered the staircase. Just as they ascended two steps, Beihan looked up and saw a long-haired female ghost perched on the railing above.
Beihan's expression seemed to stiffen a bit, but a second later he was completely speechless. This wasn't because the ghost was trying to scare people; she seemed to have fallen from somewhere and landed here.
The ghost was hit hard by the fall. Beihan noticed the ghost's head was lodged at the corner of the handrail, meaning she was not intentionally looking at the two of them like this. But she was stuck, and could only maintain this posture.
Beihan paused midstep and asked, "What do we do now?"
"Do you often feel embarrassed for others?"
"Sometimes, but not frequently."
"Well, I don't. So we just move past."
After saying so, Shiller hurriedly climbed another step and went straight past the ghost, arriving upstairs.
When Beihan passed by, he wasn't too scared, but he did feel a bit embarrassed.
From the downstairs, the ghost's dangling black hair and shining red eyes were surely terrifying. But when you saw her from the side, bent forward with her neck outstretched, she looked more like an idiot licking a metal railing in the cold winter, somewhat dim-witted.
Beihan also quickly picked up his pace, swiftly moving past the ghost. Then he called out to Shiller ahead, "Didn't you say it would be safer upstairs? Then what's with her?"
Shiller glanced back at the ghost. The ghost was still glaring at them with her two, red eyes. It wasn't exactly scary, considering her head was stuck and she could only move her eyeballs. It could even be considered somewhat amusing.
Nevertheless, Shiller's expression did not soften. He said, "She fell from an even higher floor. It further proves that this floor isn't particularly dangerous."
They quickly reached the hallway on the upper floor, quickly found the nearest room, entered and shut the door behind them, although they didn't lock it.
This was an office. Shiller swiftly picked up a sheet of paper from the desk and wedged the top edge of it into the gap between the glass of the peephole and the door to cover it, then he closed the curtains.
Beihan picked up another sheet of paper and started sketching something on it, as though to put his thoughts in order. They sat down on either side of the table and, almost simultaneously, started to speak.
"You go first." Shiller said.
"No, I may need some more time to sort out my thoughts. You go first."
"What I have to say isn't good news." Shiller picked up a sheet of paper and sketched out the structure of his 'Tower of Thought' and 'Abyss' for Beihan. Despite Beihan's puzzled expression, Shiller pointed out parts of the drawing in the Abyss.
"My morbid traits do not have clear boundaries like regular personality traits. They can even be considered whole and complete, but only when they remain in my subconscious."
"The collective of my morbid traits is like a finely-tuned machine, comprising engines, levers, gears, bearings, and more. It's not completely chaotic, but rather maintains balance very cunningly."
"But once they disperse and become independent, certain aggressive personality traits can become extremely dangerous."
Shiller looked up at Beihan, "As far as I'm aware, there are at least four such hobgoblins in this building: Hunter, Artistry, Gluttony, and Sadism."